Differences in Family Norms for Men and Women Across Europe
| Author | Aart C. Liefbroer,Arieke J. Rijken |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12310 |
| Published date | 01 August 2016 |
| Date | 01 August 2016 |
A J. R Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
A C. L Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, University Medical
Center Groningen, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam∗
Differences in Family Norms for Men and Women
Across Europe
The authors examined double standards regard-
ing divorce among parents with young children
and regarding having children within nonmari-
tal cohabitation across Europe. Whether people
disapprove more of men or of women engaging
in these behaviors is not a priori clear. The
authors formulated arguments in both direc-
tions and expected double standards to vary
cross-nationally by the level of socioeconomic
gender equality in a country. They conducted
multilevel analyses on a sample of about 44,000
individuals nested in 25 countries, obtained
from the European Social Survey (2006). Dou-
ble standards were measured with a split-ballot
design. The ndings indicated that men were
generally more disapproved of than women
when displaying the family behaviors under
study. Overall, women endorsed both double
standards, whereas men endorsed only the
double standard regarding divorce. However,
substantial cross-national differences in the
double standards exist. The higher the level of
Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology, Vrije
Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1081, 1081HV
Amsterdam, the Netherlands (a.j.rijken@vu.nl).
∗Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, P.O.
Box 11650, 2502 AR, The Hague, the Netherlands.
This article was edited by Jennifer Glass.
KeyWords: cohabiting couples with children,cross-national,
divorce, gender, multilevel models.
socioeconomic gender equality, the larger these
double standards in favor of women.
In recent decades, the centrality of marriage
has declined, and the link between mar-
riage and childbearing and childrearing has
weakened. Nonmarital cohabitation, having
children in cohabitation, and divorce all have
become more common (Amato & James, 2010;
Kiernan, 2001; Perelli-Harris et al., 2012) and
more accepted (Liefbroer & Fokkema, 2008;
Thornton & Young-DeMarco, 2001), yet, this
trend toward greater acceptance of nonmarital
living arrangements does not imply universal
acceptance in Western societies or that behavior
at odds with traditional marriage is deemed
equally acceptable for men and women. Family
behaviors such as divorce and having children
in cohabitation may affect the lives of men and
women differently,and as a consequence certain
family choices might not be approved of for men
and women to the same extent. Alternatively, if
one would extrapolate from the sexual double
standard, which traditionally has implied that
sex outside marriage is less accepted for women
than for men, one could expect that women
behaving at odds with traditional marriage in
other ways also meet more disapproval than
men. Research on the sexual double standard
suggests that certain forms of sexual behavior,
such as having a large number of sex partners,
Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (August 2016): 1097–1113 1097
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12310
1098 Journal of Marriage and Family
are still judged as less acceptable for women
than for men (Bordini & Sperb, 2013; Crawford
& Popp, 2003).
Existing surveys on attitudes toward nonmar-
ital living arrangements usually have included
gender-neutral items or items referring to cou-
ples (e.g., Diefenbach & Opp, 2007; Halman
et al., 2008; Thornton, 1985, 1989; Thornton
& Young-DeMarco, 2001; Widmer, Treas, &
Newcomb, 1998) and, sometimes, items that
focused only on women (Pagnini & Rindfuss,
1993; Trent & South, 1992). However, several
recent studies suggested that people may hold
different attitudes and norms concerning males’
and females’ family choices. For instance,
Goldscheider and Kaufman (2006) showed that
single motherhood is more accepted than single
fatherhood in the United States. A comparative
European study demonstrated that voluntary
childlessness was more approved of for women
than for men in Europe (Rijken & Merz, 2014).
In the current article we use the term double
standard to refer to such differences in approval
of men’s and women’sfamily choices. A double
standard can be dened as a different evaluation
of the same behavior for different groups of peo-
ple. Groups may be distinguished on the basis of
a variety of characteristics, such as gender, eth-
nicity, or socioeconomic background (Foschi,
2000). We examined gendered double standards
in norms regarding two family choices that differ
from conventional family behavior: (a) divorce
when one has children and (b) having children
while cohabiting. By investigating a double
standard regarding the latter family pattern, our
study deviates from the study by Goldscheider
and Kaufman (2006), who investigated the dou-
ble standard of unmarried parenthood, which
in the United States often implies single par-
enthood. In many European countries, having
children in cohabitation is becoming increas-
ingly common (Perelli-Harris et al., 2012).
We started from the assumption that it is
not a priori clear whether people disapprove
more of men or women who divorce when they
have children or have children in cohabitation.
We drew on different theories and formulated
contrasting hypotheses on the direction of the
double standard. Furthermore, we investigated
whether men and women hold equally large
double standards. Finally, we hypothesized that
double standards are related to societal levels of
socioeconomic gender equality. Therefore, we
investigated whether double standards varied
across European countries and the extent to
which this variation could be explained by
differences in national levels of socioeconomic
gender equality.
In summary, we extend the literature in sev-
eral ways. First, we contribute to the literature
on family attitudes and norms, as differences
between norms for men and women have
largely been neglected in this eld. Second,
our cross-national focus extends our under-
standing of the ways in which societal contexts
shape double standards. We used the 2006
wave of the European Social Survey (ESS;
http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/), which
was conducted in 25 European countries and
included items that provide a unique opportunity
to study double standards with regard to family
behavior. The study had a split-ballot design:
Half of the respondents were questioned about
attitudes toward men’s family behaviors, and
the other half were asked about attitudes toward
the same family behaviors displayed by women.
We conducted multilevel regression analyses
with individuals nested in countries.
T, L R,
H
The Direction of the Double Standard: Are
Norms Stricter for Men or for Women?
In our view, two opposing sets of arguments
could be put forward concerning the direction
that the double standard of divorce and hav-
ing children in cohabitation could take. On the
one hand, one could argue that these norms are
stricter for women; on the other hand, one could
argue that these norms are stricter for men. The
rational-choice literature on the emergence of
norms suggests that negative consequences of
certain behavior create a demand for norms that
reduce that behavior.Direct exposure to negative
consequences is not necessary for a normative
claim to arise (Diefenbach & Opp, 2007). Start-
ing from the idea that the emergence of norms
is related to consequences of behavior, we argue
that a gendered norm might emerge if the conse-
quences of a behavior differ for men and women.
Double standards could be seen as reecting the
fact that the potential consequences of childbear-
ing within cohabitation and of divorce when one
has children are generally less negative for men
than for women engaging in them.
A key reason to expect more negative con-
sequences for women than for men is that,
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